Student Self-Management

I have often used rubrics to help students develop projects and guide their academic work. The same principles can be applied when assisting students in managing their own behavior. The text differentiates between self-recording (simply keeping a record of their behavior) and self-evaluation (actually evaluating that performance). Studies have shown that students often keep records that are quite accurate when compared to records kept by teachers. Furthermore, experts agree that self-recording forces students to monitor their own behavior more closely.

When people diet, they often keep food journals. Simply knowing that one has to record what has been eaten often serves as a deterrent for eating junk. In the same way, if a student knows that he or she will have to record (and therefore admit to) certain behaviors, he or she may be less likely to engage in problematic behaviors. Additionally, my sense is that in maintaining their own records, students gain more ownership over their behavior. As a result, they may gain more intrinsic satisfaction/motivation from performing more acceptable behaviors.

Can anyone else think of a reason why self-recording and/or self-evaluation might be an effective tool for behavior management?

Help with this behavior?

Alright, so here's a problem behavior that has the whole staff baffled. A new teenage student who along with her learning disabilities suffers from epilepsy was admitted into one of the programs where I work. Within the first two weeks of her coming to school she became assaultive towards the staff at least twice which resulted emergency interventions. During each of these restraints the student faked a seizure. This behavior immediately resulted in the end of the restraint and calling the paramedics. This is an amazing behavior that will always result in the same conclusion and reinforcement for the student.
So, if anybody has any ideas, please let me know how to shape this behavior. And the students case manager would be so excited.
Kevin

Natural Maintaining Contingencies

One of the most important aspects of generalization and maintainence is to help the student learn skills that they will receive reinforcement for in their natural environment. Over time, our students cannot (and should not) have someone behind them ready to reinforce them for demonstration of a skill. The skill itself has to be rewarding to them within their environment. For example, teaching a student how to socialize with his peers becomes reinforcing when performed correctly because he/she will get positive attention within that interaction. Alberto & Troutman (2006) state that "if behaviors can be generated that result in increased peer reinforcement, they are particularly likely to be maintained in the natural environment" (348). I still see this behavior principle in effect through my everyday actions, i.e. I buy clothes that I think flatter me so that people will think that I look nice. If I get a compliment for my efforts then I have been reinforced for making an effort in my clothing choices and will probably wear that particular item of clothing more frequently. Therefore, for our students, it is very important to work on behaviors that will receive reinforcement in their natural environment. This means getting to know the student's culture, lifestyle, home life, etc is vital so that you will know what behaviors those students' environments will maintain. It also means that it might be more useful for our student's with severe disabilities to be working on more functional skills, i.e. riding the bus, buying/paying for an item in a store, so that they will be able to interact more fluently in their environment.

Generalization & Maintenance

The main goal of a behavior modification is that when the intervention ends that the behavior change occurs outside of the environment. This refers to maintenance and generalization and the importance of programming these in a child’s BIP.

Generalization is the degree in which a change in a behavior will transfer to another setting or situation. Generalization does not happen spontaneously it must be planned.

Here are some important points to incorporate into the goals to encourage maintenance and generalization;
1. Teach behaviors in a natural setting.
2. Have many people train with the student.
3. Train in many settings.
4. Move from artificial controls (prompts, reinforcers) to natural reinforcers (praise, better grades).
5. Move from continuous to intermittent and from fixed to variable schedules.
6. Reinforce students when they are maintaining and generalizing the behavior.

Final Project Rubric Posted

Hello Class,

The final project rubric has been posted on the Homework Documents side banner.

Also, the drawing for the tote bag was held with Shelley and Kendra present...and the winner is......Kevin.

Dr. A

self-reinforcement

As I read the chapter I became amused with myself at the ways I practice self-reinforcement. Even as I sat down to write this I fed myself a piece of chocolate. Through this skill I have encouraged myself to do many things that I had to do for my own good. I honestly used to say to myself' "ok, if you go to work, I 'll buy you a latte". That was very motivating to me and I figured that the price of a latte is better than losing a day's wages. I often tell myself that if I finish my homework then I can watch TV. I guess it is sort of pathetic that I pretty much only reinforce myself with candy, coffee and TV. Although, last year I used to buy myself a plant at Target every time I got through a particularly rough day at school. I had an enormous garden.

I guess we are teaching our students to self-reinforce by reinforcing their bahavior. Are there more effective ways to teach this. Is it worth while to teach self- reinforcement? What are some ways that you practice self-reinforcement?

Modified Self-Recording

As I was reading the information covered in Chapter 11 about teaching students how to manage their own behavior I initially did not think most of the students that I work with would be able to do this very effectively. A couple of my high school students can not write well and tallying on any kind of chart would be a very challenging feat. However, I was thinking that if I really wanted my students to self record, as opposed to keeping tallies in a chart I could use small buckets or velcro boards. For example, if during a period the period of time the student was on task, they could put a block into the "on task bucket" or onto the "on task board" and vice versa for off task behavior. This would eliminate some of the fine motor problems that I was initially thinking about.

CEC Code of Ethics

I was reading the CEC Code of ethics in preparing for class tonight. While reading them I was stuck by the responsibilities that we have as educators working with students with special needs. I especially resonate with the first code,

"Special education professionals are committed to developing the highest educational and quality of life potential of individuals with exceptionalities."

I really do feel that this something that we do have to be committed to achieving for our students. Yet, I do have a struggle with our other role, as a responsible agent for the school, school district and their resources. I have continually heard that public education is the Chevy version of education not the Cadillac. If this is true at what point do you say that we have delivered a Chevy's quality worth education for a student, what services are included in this. What is Chevy services for one kid and Cadillac for another? I really do feel a pull between the ethic, responsibility towards the students and their needs, and the resources of the district. Does anyone else feel this? If so, how do you reconcile these feelings and how do you know when you have done what is best for all parties?

Self-Recording

One of the concepts explored in this week’s reading was self-recording. Student self-recording is when students record their own behavior data, instead of an observer. The authors look at two kinds of self-recording, cued and non-cued. Cued self-recording occurs when the student is given some kind off signal, i.e. bell, tone, timer etc., and asked to record whether they were performing the behavior when they heard the signal. Non-cued self-recording is when students are asked to record every time they perform a targeted behavior. By self-recording, students are provided concrete feedback about their behaviors and are also made to monitor their own behaviors.
I am currently working with a student who has recently been but on a self-recording system. He has had trouble with staying on task and completing and submitting class assignments. He has been placed on a non-cued recording system, and marks off on a chart every time he completes and turns in an assignment in class. When he reaches a certain amount of turned in assignments (currently his target is 10) he has to let the teacher know, show her his log, and then gets to choose from three different positive reinforcers. The system has been fairly successful so far, and is an improvement from the system previously in place in which an aide kept track of assignments turned in. He seems more motivated now that he is keeping track of his own data.
Has anyone else had experiences with a student self-recording system? Did it prove to be successful?

Response-Cost Procedures

As I sit and look at the class notes about response-cost procedures, I think about my own class. I currently teach a class for students with Emotional Disturbance and have tried response cost with them. I tried giving the students reinforcers for their behaviors, and then taking them away when they have lost them. I found that if I was taking something away that the students feel they have previously earned, they figure that appropriate behavior is not worth it.

We have now switched to a token economy, where the students earn stars for appropriate behavior and completing tasks. They can then use these stars to purchase time on a choice activity. Since we have started this system, the students seem to be working harder, becuase they want to earn their stars. They want to be able to use them for individual things like computer time and whole class rewards like a movie on Friday afternoon.

No matter what type of behavior management system you have in place the one thing I have learned this year is that you must be consistent in your carrying out of the plan that is set in place. The student will notice when you don't follow through the way the system is set up.

What types of behavior management systems are you using in your classrooms, or do you think you will use once you have your own class?

Prompting & Fading

Prompting and fading are widely used to build new skills by educators. A prompt can be defined, as a hint or antecedent meant to induce a person to perform a desired behavior that otherwise does not occur. Lots of antecedents affect the likelihood of a behavior occurring. So, while prompts are a useful tool in teaching, it’s important to wean the students off them very quickly.

You can wean your child off prompts by fading which is simply gradually reducing the strength of the prompt. Using the example “point to block”, you might gently touch the child’s elbow to induce him/her to point to the block, rather than using an HOH prompt.

Rules for Prompting and Fading
1. Define target behavior. We begin by defining exactly what behavior we want to change. In this case it means defining the behavior we want to prompt.
2. Identify suitable prompts. Choose a prompt that will reliably produce this behavior.
3. Prompt, reinforce and fade. The reason for prompting behavior is so that you can reinforce it. Reinforcement provides the motivation for the child to learn. Since the object of prompting is to get the behavior to appear so that you can reinforce it, it’s important to give the child time to respond. After presenting the prompt, you wait a few seconds before prompting again. The reason for waiting for the few seconds is to see whether the child will attempt a correct response thus letting you know what prompt level to use. As the target behavior appears, begin to fade the prompt.
4. Monitor results. This is essential to know you are progressing satisfactorily.

Here’s a question for feedback, once a child is prompt dependent, how do the educators stop this dependency?

Assignment#4

For our last assignment, we were asked to come up with reinforcers that we can use with our student and the schedule in which we will give these reinforcers. Reinforcement can be given continuously, or intermittently (ratio/interval).
My student’s problem behavior is throwing toys, and the replacement behavior is handing the toy to an adult. At the start of the intervention, reinforcement will be given continuously. Every time she hands a toy to an adult, she will be given a reinforcement. However, the schedule will change to a fixed-ratio schedule such as FR3. Only after the third time she has handed a toy to an adult will she be given a reinforcement. The schedules will change to an FR5, FR10, etc.
I am having difficulties understanding how an interval schedule could be used in the classroom. Is anyone using an interval schedule with their student? Why types of reinforcements are you using with your student and with what schedule of reinforcement?

Shaping Behavior

I'm working with a student and we are working on several behaviors. One of these is that we have been working on increasing his ability to participate and maintain focused during instruction. This has been going well due to the high frequency of reinforcement. But, the main problem now seems to be transitioning from a preferred activity (movie) back to instruction. One thing we have been trying is to try to reinforce his appropriate transitions by immediately transitioning back to a preferred activity after an appropriate transition (these are randomly chosen).

I have been racking my brain to figure out what is reinforcing for this little guy, but being that he is resistant to verbal communications and his reinforcers are limited to movie watching and edibles. I can't figure out how to create an environment for him where I can even start to run his educational goals when I don't have anything reinforcing enough to have him sit and respond for more than a couple minutes.

Setting Events

The textbook defines setting events as circumstances in an individual’s life, ranging from cultural influences to an uncomfortable environment, that temporarily alter the power of reinforcers. I currently have a student who comes from a group home and the second he walks in my door, I can usually tell what kind of morning he has had (and consequently, what kind of morning I will have). Setting events can be powerful influences in a student's life and can be huge determinants in the type of behavior that we can expect to see in our classrooms.

One way to manage setting events is to make sure that we have a good relationship with our students, so that we can identify when we may need to intervene to manage those setting events. One of the strategies that I use with my student is to allow him to take a walk around the building, take a few minutes alone in our conference room, or have him talk to our therapist for a few minutes before he is asked to start his academic day. Does anyone else have any ideas for managing setting events?

Chaining

Chaining is the process of teaching an individual a new skill in sequential form and reinforcing each step along the way. For example, when I tell my student to put his lunch box away the steps involved are: 1) open the lunch box, 2) put all the food containers in the sink, 3) close the lunch box, and 4) put the lunch box away in the cupboard.

There are 2 different types of chaining: forward and backward. Forward chaining is the process of teaching a new skill by beginning with the first step in the "chain", while backward chaining is the process of teaching a new skill in reverse order, or starting with the last link in the "chain".

Can anyone give any examples of this? Are any of you using these skills on your students or can you describe ways that these types of chains may be effective in your classrooms?

Strategies for Decreasing Behavior

First, let me thank Sarah for reminding me to post this new blog entry.

Now, let's have a conversation about how you can integrate differential reinforcement strategies to decrease the problem behavior for the student that you have been conducting your assessment.

For example, if your student's problem behavior is blurting out and the replacement behavior is raising hand quietly and waiting to be called before speaking...then, the problem and replacement behavior would be considered incompatible. The student CANNOT raise hand and remain quiet while blurting out. Therefore, your differential reinforcement strategy for your student would be to use DRI, Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible Behavior....the reinforcement you use must be of the same type as the one that the problem behavior typically accesses....so, as you systematically deliver reinforcement contingently each time that the student exhibits the replacement behavior, the student accesses the same function with the replacement behavior, while the problem behavior will be purposefully and systematically NOT reinforced (extiniction) and the problem behavior will naturally decrease.

Use your cases to come up with a formal strategy to decrease your student's problem behavior using one of the differential reinforcement strategies: DRI, DRA, DRO, DRL.

I have crafted the midterm to ensure that all of the content has been covered in class and in your readings...there should be NO surprises.

One more thing, I will be out of town on Tuesday and the midterm exam will be proctored by my student assistant...he has specific directions on administering the exam.

I will have access to my email and the class blog...so, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to post on the blog or email me.

Thanks,

Dr. A